Migrants sleeping outside, stretching around Roosevelt Hotel's Midtown block
Janice Yu reports on the overflow of migrants in Midtown.
MIDTOWN (WABC) -- The Roosevelt Hotel processing center for newly-arrived migrants has reached capacity in Midtown Manhattan.
Monday morning, asylum seekers were sleeping on the sidewalks winding around the hotel's block at 46th and Vanderbilt.
Mayor Eric Adams' office says scenes like this could be more common as the city continues to grapple with the number of migrants who are here and continue to arrive.
The mayor's office says more than 93,000 asylum seekers have come through the city's intake system since last spring.
The hotel is being used as an intake center, which means the majority of the people lined up will be taken to another shelter once they're done being processed.
Only migrant families have been staying at the hotel.
On Sunday morning, Eyewitness Newssaw asylum seekers leaving the hotel and getting on an MTA bus to go to a shelter in the Bronx.
"Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night. While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive each day," the mayor's office said in a statement.
Migrants say the journey has been exhausting and this situation is not ideal, but they're ready to start their new lives.
"Obviously we want to work, We just need permission to work," one man said.
"I don't want handouts," said Darlis Lopez, an asylum seeker from Venezuela. "I like to work."
The city has asked the federal government to speed up the work permit process so that migrants can get jobs legally and rely less on city resources.
Officials are encouraging migrants to take placements outside the city once they become available.
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Source: WABC-TV
